PUNE: The district and sessions court here on Wednesday sentenced a 47-year-old laboratory assistant of a school at Guruwar Peth to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment (RI) for raping a 12-year-old girl student in the school laboratory last year.

Sessions court judge Anant Badar also sentenced the accused, Kailash Memjade, a resident of Wanowrie Bazaar, to six months' RI for wrongful confinement and to two years' RI for criminal intimidation. He was also fined Rs 6,500. The sentences will run concurrently.

The judge also passed severe strictures on the school's headmistress, Stella David, for not taking cognizance of the shocking incident when the girl's parents approached her.

According to the prosecution, Memjade had asked the girl, a fifth standard student, to come to the laboratory with a bottle of water on February 23 last year. When she went to the laboratory, he bolted the door from inside, gagged the girl and raped her. He later threatened the girl with dire consequences if she told anyone of the incident. The girl, however, told her classmates who, in turn, told her parents the next day.

The prosecution said that when the girl's parents met David, she did not take cognizance and instead told them to meet her after a few days as she was leaving for Ahmedabad.

The parents lodged a complaint against Memjade with the Khadak police station on February 25 and he was arrested the same day. The incident had created a law-and-order problem in the area.

In his judgment, judge Badar said, "The headmistress was made aware about the sexual assault, but she showed total insensitivity and utter lack of responsibility. She was expected to guide the girl's parents and should have taken them to the police to lodge an FIR, but she did not do that. She chose to go out of station to attend a private programme and that too by directing the parents not to take action till she returned. One cannot uphold the arguments of the defence that there was a delay in registering the FIR."

The judge further observed that "insensitivity" by the headmistress was one of the factors which prevented the girl's mother from immediately seeking recourse to law. "The mother was also conscious of the fact that in future it would be difficult to secure a match for her daughter apart from facing the danger of being ostracised by society or being looked down upon by society," he said.

David admitted before the court that the girl's mother had approached her with the complaint. She said Memjade was subsequently suspended from service and that the required information was given to the police. She also admitted that she did not make any inquiries with Memjade before he was suspended.

She, however, said the conduct of the accused was good in school and that there had been no complaints against him from the staff or students. Additional public prosecutor Subhash Kalbhor examined 12 witnesses, including the victim, her mother and medical officers.

After being pronounced guilty, Memjade maintained that he had not committed any offence. He did not show any remorse when the verdict was explained to him in Marathi. His lawyer appealed to the court to take a lenient view as he was the only earning member in his family.